Girl, 14, moderately wounded in apparent shooting in Rahat
A 14-year-old girl was moderately wounded overnight in the southern town of Rahat.
The teen was taken to Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center for treatment for what was described by police as a “penetrating wound.”
Police said they opened an investigation into whether the girl’s wounds were the result of gunfire.
Arab communities in Israel have seen a surge in violence in recent years, driven mainly, but not exclusively, by organized crime. Arab Israelis blame police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence, which includes family feuds, mafia turf wars and violence against women.
The Arab community has also suffered from decades of neglect.
The incident came hours after a 33-year-old woman was killed by gunfire outside her home in the Arab town of Qalansawe, east of Netanya.
An unidentified man fled the scene after firing at the woman as she stood beside her car.
Paramedics treated the woman at the scene and rushed her to Kfar Saba’s Meir Medical Center in critical condition, but she later died of her wounds.
The Abraham Initiatives, which monitors and campaigns against violence in the Arab community, said that 2021 saw 125 Arabs killed as a result of violence and crime — an all-time record.
Earlier this year, Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said that “criminal families in the Arab sector” were “holding the community by the throat.”